We take a break from NaReLeMo (don’t worry, there are plenty more rejections to be blogged about) for this meme.

It’s this lovely thing going around the writingblogosphere, which is a list of questions about your next project. You answer said questions and then tag some number of other people to answer them. At this point, I’ve been asked three times and tagged at least twice, so I think this is tapping out a la pyramid schemes, but it’s the nicest pyramid scheme in the world, so I’m happy to play along.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was awarded a New Writers Award from the Scottish Book Trust (huzzah!), and my project was my first full-length poetry collection (which is currently under consideration). After I pulled that together, I had lots of other poems that were good enough to publish in a book, but which hadn’t fit into the full-length collection. I was definitely at the point where I needed a pamphlet to sell at poetry readings, so I decided to use some of the remaining poems to create a smaller collection. There are a few crossover poems with the full-length collection, but this has quite a few poems that I consider more ‘performance’ pieces, and the narrative arc is distinct, so this isn’t just a miniature version.

What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry, debut collection.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
No idea! Maybe it could be a dramatised reading, with a classically-trained actress.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
From emptiness to joy, with hot chocolate and lipstick.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
It’s published by Stewed Rhubarb Press, a new press which focuses on performance poets.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I started concentrating on poetry in the autumn of 2009, and all but one of the poems in this collection are from this period. Individual poems usually take several days to a few weeks.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Other first pamphlets, probably! The Stewed Rhubarb line – which contains four other pamphlets at the moment, with many more to come – is pretty dynamic, so I’m happy to be part of this group.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
There were a few people who prompted some of the poems, as the dedication section makes clear (though most of the inspiration remains behind the curtain). Then Rachel and James at Stewed Rhubarb pulled out the narrative from the heap of individual poems I handed them. So in a way, the collection itself was a collaborative effort.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It’s mostly a love story, but the narrative includes a contribution from the Turing machine.

…and this is the point where I am supposed to tag people, but I think everyone has already been tagged! So I’ll namecheck fellow authors Halsted Bernard and Caroline Dunford, and the entire Stewed Rhubarb crowd.